Part of it is the way we raise kids. We tell every single one of them they're going to grow up to be president or a doctor or an astronaut. I once saw a 12 year old in a wheelchair tell a teacher he was going to play in the NFL when he grew up (completely seriously) and she encouraged him and told him "if you put your mind to it, you can do anything!". No. No he can't. And at 12 he needs to start thinking more realistically about what he's going to do when he grows up.

We need to start teaching kids that most people have a mediocre life and the best thing they can do is learn to be happy in their mediocre life. We need to stop telling them it's failure to accept anything less than being a cancer curing movie star secret agent inventor by the age of 20.